Checkinstall: Busted for over a decade and Linux is Bloated now.

So last Thursday, I had Quake fever after watching a few Vinesauce Vinny ‘Gettin’ Quake With it’ vods. Well I own Quake, However I use a non windows system and wanted to play the game ‘natively’ so I downloaded a Source Port called DarkPlaces which was developed by LadyHavoc which also forms the basis of the freesoftware games Xonotic/Nexuiz(the original). So I download the source code and try to compile it….then

FIRST PROBLEM: My SDL2 version was too stale

So I try and compile it but because Ubuntu repository’s are always stale in terms of software. It turned out my SDL2 was stale. So I download the SDL2 src and compiled. Compiled without a hitch but since SDL is a system library I need to perform a ‘make install’ but doing that with compiled code can get messy since it isn’t really tracked. One way we can get around this is via using a piece of software called checkinstall which creates a ‘pseudo’ deb file which we can install and if for some reason we want to remove SDL2, we just remove the ‘pseudo’ deb file. The deb isn’t really suitable for distribution hence why I’m calling a it a ‘pseudo’ deb.

SECOND PROBLEM: Checkinstall requires root.

inorder to install to root file system you need to give make install root privileges this means I had to run checkinstall with sudo….. and that's when the fun begins. Everything seemed fine and dandy….but the install failed and that required a rollback. However…. IT REPLACED MY FRICKING /LIB FOLDER SYMLINK. WHICH BRICKED MY FRICKING SYSTEM!!!! Somehow my browser was working fine but terminal broke and I couldn’t launch any applications.

So I had to open my phone and find the solution.

THE Problem:

Turns out if checkinstall is interrupted it breaks install. And breaks your lib folder. It’s absolutely atrocious that Canonical hasn’t removed checkinstall from their repos as the program is so bugged or bothered to fix it since they’re the ones bothering to maintain it. Like this bug practically makes the software unusable in a production environment.

With my computer now bricked due to this decade long bug. I had to somehow log in via a live disc and relink /usr/lib with /lib. Problem is I lacked live discs on hand and the live discs I do have are from decades old ‘Linux Format’ issues. I also didn’t have any free USB keys. But I did have DVD+R’s…..but my DVD Burner in my other PC COULDN’T BURN TO THEM! I spent a good 30 minutes wondering what was wrong till I decided sod it. I’ll use a CD-R as I still have quite a few of them lying about. So get a CD-R….but a problem, a big, big, big, big, big, big problem though EVERY, SINGLE, MODERN, DISTRO, IS OVER 700MB! Even the lightweight distros are over 1GB which is absolutely rediculus. What also didn’t help is distros like DSL and PuppyLinux are focused on ancient Legacy Bios X86 machines. And I need one that would/willing to work with a UEFI machine. So I started looking, though sparkylinux looked nice, HOWEVER the ISO was over the CD limit by 99MB! So wouldn’t fit on the disc. In the end I found one that was modern and would work. I used TinyCore Linux a 25MB DISTRO! I couldn’t believe it after faffing for about a hour I finally found a Live environment that could fit on a CD in 2025. so I burnt a disc, booted it up and fixed my Linux Mint install all within a span of 10minutes.

I’m so grateful that projects like TinyCoreLinux exist.

I then got back to my installed Desktop and continued compiling DarkPlaces and proceeded to play quake all before bed and lived Happily Ever After. But WOW was it struggle.

Kind Regards, Jason Lees